NHRA event this weekend: Erica Enders a crowd favorite

The National Hot Rod Association’s annual O’Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals is set for Friday-Sunday, April 27-29, at the Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown. If you like straight-line thunder, it’s a great place to be. A crowd favorite will be Houston native Erica Enders — the most successful woman Pro Stock racer in history. Are you planning to attend the event or watch it on TV?

The following story on Enders appeared in this past Sunday’s InMotion section:

With 20 years of drag-racing experience, it might seem a driver would be on a short track to a career finish line. For Houston native Erica Enders, who first piloted a dragster at age 8, all signs point to a long, bright future.

Enjoying a sterling career in the National Hot Rod Association Pro Stock class, the 28-year-old is eyeing becoming the first female winner in Pro Stock history. She has hopes this milestone will be achieved next weekend before a home crowd at the O’Reilly Auto Parts Spring Nationals, Friday-Sunday, April 27-29, at the Royal Purple Raceway in Baytown.

Enders has the talent, car, crew and momentum to make this happen for the GK Motorsports team. She’s coming off of a strong showing at the Four-Wide Nationals in Charlotte, N.C., where she was edged out of the top spot during the finals.

“I love coming back to Houston,” she said. “I live in New Orleans now. I’m real excited to come home.”

A graduate of Cypress Springs High School, Enders, along with younger sister Courtney, has lived around high-performance cars her entire life. Her father, Gregg Enders, is a former drag racer and classic-car hobbyist.

“My dad drove his whole life, so Courtney and I grew up around it,” Enders said. “Just like other families had soccer and swim teams, we had drag racing.”

Both Enders and her sister had successful careers in the NHRA Jr. Drag Racing League. The sisters’ success captured the attention of Walt Disney Studios, which created the 2003 TV movie “Right on Track,” based on their childhood drag-racing accomplishments.

During her school years, Enders was active in mainstream sports — volleyball, basketball, track and golf — but her zeal for blasting down a track in a dragster drew vexing remarks.

“I always got the comments, especially from the parents:`How does your mother let you get in a race car?,’” Enders said. “A lot of kids thought it was weird — especially the more-prissy girls.”

A firm commitment to drag racing during her youth led to a key step toward Enders’ professional career, when on her 16th birthday she was sent by her father to Frank Hawley’s Drag Racing School, where she got her Super Comp license. After racing Super Comp and Super Gas for five years, Enders decided on a path to racing Funny Cars, and got her Top Alcohol Funny Car license. Less than a month after getting the license, she won a 2004 Houston event in Super Gas that prompted a call for her to drive a Pro Stock car.

“The Funny Car thing went out the window because I always had a love for Pro Stock,” she said. She was trained to drive by Victor Cagnazzi in 2004 and made her pro debut in 2005.

“There’s never been a really successful woman in Pro Stock, so I’ve been able to secure all of the records,” Enders said. “I was the first one to qualify in No. 1. I was the first woman to win a round of competition, the first woman to go to the semis and the first woman to go to the finals.”

Among men and women Pro Stock competitors, she set the world speed record in Gainesville, Fla., last year, and that record still stands.

Being a woman in a male-dominated sport hasn’t been easy, Enders said. There are some extremely chauvinistic people out there and they say things that are hurtful.

“I remember coming home after my first year of racing professionally and tried to be tough, but I would come to my hotel in tears wondering how those people can be so mean to treat me like this. My dad said you have to decide if this is truly the desire of your heart, and if it is man up and deal with it … From that point on, that was it. We always just say ‘man up.’”

Today, Enders is a force in the Pro Stock division, driving a Chevy Cobalt-bodied race car with a 500-cubic-inch engine, churning out 1,400-plus horsepower.

“It’s a crazy-cool factory hot rod with raw horsepower — awesome,” she said. “We’ve been bow-tie soldiers for over a year. It’s cool to represent the brand.”

Her other four-wheel passion is American classic cars.

“I wish that I had grown up in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s with all those cool hot rods,” Enders said. “My dad and I have a garage full of stuff, at least 10 or 12 cars. We built a ’67 Chevy together that is just amazing.”

She feels fortunate having the opportunity to be around exceptional cars in both her personal and professional life.

“It sounds corny, but it’s a dream-come-true for me. It’s very surreal to be able to do what I do for a living,” Enders said. “We’ve been to several finals, unfortunately without a win yet, but we’re hoping to get that done pretty soon.

“It would be really awesome to do it in Houston.”

Enders is a fan of classic American vehicles. She and her father restored this 1967 Chevelle Super Sport. (Photo by Janet Lee Enders)